Searches for UK homes with air conditioning have more than doubled this year.
Not just “more people are talking about the heat.” Actual searches — as in people now see this issues as important enough to stop and do an internet search. Rightmove’s data shows a 104% year-on-year rise, and 87% of people now say a home’s ability to stay cool is an important factor when choosing their next property.
That’s not sentiment. That’s a purchasing decision already being made, particularly as we experience hotter summers.
The gap between wanting and having
Here’s what makes it interesting rather than obvious: only 12% of people actually have air conditioning in the UK. 61% say they’d consider installing it. Only 11% say their current home copes well in a heatwave.
So there’s a large gap between what people now want from a home and what most homes currently offer. And AC-fitted properties still make up under 1% of what’s actually listed for sale. Demand has moved faster than supply, which means the interesting question isn’t “should I get air conditioning” — it’s when buying a new home do I factor the cost of installation in to my asking price.
The UK’s Climate Change Committee, in a report published in May, put a number on the scale of the problem: it projects that 92% of existing UK homes could be at risk of overheating by 2050 without adaptation, and it’s explicit that passive measures alone — curtains, opening a window — may not be enough on their own as heatwaves intensify.
Which is worth taking seriously, adaptation has a hierarchy — yes, start with the cheapest, lowest-energy interventions, because most homes aren’t even doing those properly yet. But the Committee’s point is, for a meaningful share of UK housing, the building itself may eventually need to change, not just the habits inside it. Closing the blinds properly is the right place to start. It isn’t necessarily where adaptation ends.
Start with the building, not the appliance
Most heatwave advice jumps straight to buying something. The Committee’s own sequence — and what people are already doing, according to Rightmove’s data — suggests a more useful order.
Block the heat before it arrives. Curtains and blinds closed on sun-facing rooms during the day. The UK Health Security Agency calls this the single most important step, and it costs nothing.
Shade and orientation. External shutters, awnings, trees, garden planting. 29% of people are already doing this.
Ventilation, timed properly. Cross-ventilation once the outside air is actually cooler than inside — usually the early hours, not 11pm.
Insulation. 38% of people have already improved theirs this year. Good insulation isn’t just a winter fix — done properly, it keeps heat out as well as in.
Targeted cooling before whole-house cooling. A Loughborough University study this year tested something specific: a water-based cooling mattress topper, in a controlled bedroom held at 30°C, against standard bedding. Seventeen participants. The topper added 19 minutes to total sleep time and cut the time it took to fall asleep by 10 minutes — enough to bring sleep back to normal, at-home levels. Small study, but a useful reminder that you can often solve the bed before you need to solve the room.
Obviously, a really good fan does the job too, well to a degree. I found this one particularly good this summer – here
Air conditioning, if you still need it. Not first. Last.
What this actually is
A home’s ability to stay cool has quietly moved from an afterthought to a line item — something people now factor in alongside location and price, the way they’d factor in a garden or a second bathroom.
That’s worth thinking about, because most coverage of heatwaves treats each one as a one-off event. This isn’t that. It’s a shift in what a “good home” is expected to do.
And the fix, at every stage before the last one, is cheaper than the thing everyone assumes they need.
If you want the bedroom-specific version of this — what actually helps you sleep on a hot night — I wrote about that here.
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